A quick step by step guide to Flags & Sails

There are several useful threads on the PotBS forums, To make it easier for you comrades I will try to do a quick step by step guide on how to get a sail or flag approved. A quick note on the examples I linked, I suggest you take a moment and check out some more of the already submitted content, rejected or accepted ones, to get a feeling for what they want to see and what not :

Starting out
1. Think about what kind of picture/image you want on your sail or flag. Don't use a modern image. No robocop's head or anything like that Try a simple one (bad example here, good example here).
2. Use a more or less decent software to draw your flag or sail. The second post in this thread lists some programs you can use to design your flag or sail. I used "the Gimp", its freeware .
3. You have to save your work in the .PNG format. Your flags have to be 128 pixels x 85 pixels in size, sails have to be 256 pixels x 256 pixels in size.

Fine tuning/important details
4. No matter if flag or sail, take care that the edges of your image are not "aliased", smoothen them (bad example here, good example here).
5. With a flag, you can design the whole rectangle flag form and the image on it. With a sail, just color the image and leave the "falg canvas part" transparent, check out some examples of already submitted content and you will see quickly what I mean.
6. If you have a simple symbol the best is to make it light grey. That way you can color it in-game later on. They tend to reject too bright colors and the like as well.

Submitting your work
7. You can click here to get to the submit section of PotBS. There you can submit flag or sail designs.
8. After you submit it you can link your own work into the "vote for me" thread on the PotBS forums, right here and show them to us in here of course .
9. After you got 5 votes its waiting, waiting and waiting for your work to be accepted or rejected. It doesn't take more than that votes-wise. Marion Van Ghent wrote that in some thread there. Waiting for approval can take quite a while, like a month, so be aware of that.

Here are some more useful links on Flags and Sails:
- The official 2D Community Content Guide
- Flag Templates
- The 2D Tutorials & Resources thread on the PotBS forums, listed above as well under 2.


I hope this is helpful Please add any feedback or things I might have forgotten.

DAMN, I so badly wanted a robocop sail. =P

Thanks for this though. Helpful tips all around, and it's nice to not have to scour the forums for all of the various, scattered tidbits of information.

SO I CAN'T ride the seas on a boat with a pixelated Master Chief sail?

Damn, now I have to plan the whole thing over again!

Anyway, thanks for the guide, been wanting to try my hand at this stuff!

yea know. thats an awesome example of smoothing

Awesome guide, needs to be sticky.


Also, here are some guideline for the colors, that I didn't know on my frist try

avoid significant areas of pure white, black, or other fully-saturated colors.

Try these colors:
red around RGB 150/45/35
black around RGB 50/40/30
white around RGB 235/230/220
green around RGB 45/115/35
gold around RGB 220/180/50
blue around RGB 40/50/90